these ashes, they stop us
by colorful swirls
Summary: And she thinks that it's all her fault. - AngelinaFred.


**This is for the Pairing One Hour Challenge/Hardest Challenge Ever II, with the pairing Angelina/Fred, prompts travelling and Anchor by Mindy Gledhill, word count of 2,000+, and the time limit of 2 hours.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything related.**

-:-

She meets him at the Sorting in their first year; he's a bright-eyed boy with red hair that she instantly wants to touch, to see if it's really as fiery as it looks from afar.

He and his brother - his _twin_ - George are both immediately sorted into Gryffindor, just like her, and when he introduces himself, she giggles slightly.

Of course, she gets to know the two of them quickly enough, and she realizes that there is nothing particularly _wanted_ in this boy with smiling eyes and orange hair.

He's poor; immature; he has a twin; and basically all of his time is spent making and executing pranks.

The two of them say they like to play jokes not to boost their self-confidence, but to make someone laugh.

"Ever heard of a knock, knock joke?" she asks when they state this, and the two of them look at her, baffled.

"What's a knock, knock joke?" they say in perfect unison, and she reigns forgetfulness.

"I got it off Hermione," she breezes through the halls, "I'll ask her again later and tell you."

She doesn't, though, because she figures it's quite unnecessary to teach them another kind of joke, but it plaques her with guilt for the remainder of the year, so at his funeral, she tells him.

She's never been good at keeping up deadlines; she's usually late (like this time).

-:-

In second year, the three of them, her best friend Alicia Spinnet, and Alicia's friend Cameron all try out for the Gryffindor Quidditch Team.

Only two of them make it: the Weasley twins. This fact, of course, makes Angelina, Alicia, and Cameron extremely angry and envious.

Angelina and Alicia vow to get on the next year and make it hell for the Beaters; Cameron spits fire but lets none touch Fred or George.

"I hate them," she says vehemently, "but we really should just calm down, guys."

By the next year, those eyes have roped Angelina back in, and Cameron becomes a person they quickly abandon.

Third year's goal is to become a part of the Quidditch Team.

Really, it's the same as second year's, but they have more motivation this time around.

-:-

In her third year, she makes it, and she nearly cries out in joy when she finds out - her and Alicia both.

-:-

In her fourth year, she begins to date. She dates a Ravenclaw, some Jack boy, a Slytherin, whose name she doesn't recall, a Hufflepuff - and she regrets breaking it up; he bought the best chocolate - by the name of Gregory.

She doesn't date any Gryffindors, not then, and Fred and George tease her, saying that she's trying for the other kind, (wink, wink), but she ignores them and she ignores the sharp of ice in Fred's eyes.

-:-

Whenever she's fifteen years old, the Triwizard Tournament comes to Hogwarts.

Immediately, she wants to be in it, she wants to be the champion - she's been searching for her place all her life, and what is a better place than champion? - but she's too young.

Then Harry is chosen and Fred and George grow beards, and everything runs together through this part, because this is where it gets tricky.

Harry was in the maze - so was Cedric - they both touched the Cup, and it was a portkey - and it took them to a graveyard? Cedric was murdered by Voldemort?

It confuses her, because Voldemort is gone, he has to be, but Harry says it's true. And the Sorting Hat considered Hufflepuff for her - she's loyal, and proud - so she believes him.

It serves her well in the end, keeping Harry a friend. If she hadn't, if she had gone on the side of the Death Eaters (not that she would have anyway), than odds are she wouldn't have made it as long as she did.

-:-

During the Tournament, between the second and third tasks, a ball is held: the Yule Ball.

The girls dress up and the boys groan, and Angelina is thinking of what she'll do alone, when Fred asks her to the ball, casually and cooly, like he's asking for a homework answer.

She blushes and says yes immediately, and the little look of victory that flashes on his face is enough for her to say that she loves him.

They don't really dance much at the ball - neither of them have much rhythm, so they prefer to sit on benches in the corner and get to know each other.

Since they've known each other for five years, though, it's hard to learn something new about the other, but Angelina manages.

She sits on the cold metal beside Fred (who keeps her warm) swinging her legs very in a very unladylike manner, and she discovers that Fred is like a rocket.

He's primed and ready to go, to shoot for the stars, to blow up the moon, and he's definitely intelligent enough to make it that high in the sky.

But it's _dangerous_.

Thus, Angelina decides to be his anchor; she'll keep him from travelling that far away, she'll hold him to the ground, where he can still be extraordinary and not be a floating explosion.

-:-

In her fifth and sixth years, she's with Fred - sort of, sort of not.

He's a bit conflicted, he says. He's not sure what's going on, he claims.

Normally, Angelina is not one for being unsure or faltering. But she loves him (she knows it now, she really does _love _him) and so she lets him go through his ever-changing moods.

Sometimes, he'll kiss her and murmur something along the lines of, "You're amazing," while other times he'll become obsessed with his latest project and forget about her existence.

All the while (even when he's ignoring her), though, he treats her like she is a queen.

(Which makes him her king.)

-:-

In her seventh year, he's gone. He'd flown away at the end of her sixth year, on a broom, with his twin brother, George.

The story becomes a legend, quickly and easily.

And she's never been prouder of him, not ever. And she probably never will be prouder.

-:-

She's still a member of the D.A., even though she may not be at Hogwarts, so when she gets the signal, she goes, as fast as possible.

-:-

The fighting is ruthless, the enemies are unbeatable, the odds are unshakable, and she's about ready lay down her wand and give up whenever Harry Potter dies (according to _him_).

She holds up her wand and a surge of rage and sorrow and hurt and promise (for revenge) goes through her as Voldemort steps out of the forest, accompanied by a weeping Hagrid with a - _dead_ - Harry in his arms.

Angelina wants to cry, but instead, she fights (and it's actually more satisfying, to see who you've killed, than to taste your own tears).

Which makes her feel like a bad person, but this is a _war_.

-:-

After it's over, after bloodshed has stopped, after she's found out that only her little sister and uncle Kenny survived, Harry comes up to her (alive!).

"Ange," he says, those green eyes weary and depressed, "there's something - some_one_ - you need to see."

She follows him with growing unease, her heart screaming to go back louder with each step across the grimy marble floor.

-:-

"It was an accident," Harry says, his voice higher than usual, but Angelina realizes that it's because he's trying not to cry, not because he's nervous.

"It was an accident," Harry repeats as they get closer to the Great Hall, almost like he thinks whatever has happened is his fault, almost like a little boy, apologizing for popping his big sister's red balloon.

He opens the door, and it's much too crowded to distinguish anything in particular, but Harry obviously knows where he's going, because soon they're joining the clan of distraught-looking redheads.

But one's missing. She freezes for a minute, before her brain screams_ Get a grip, Johnson!_ and she calmly asks, "Where's Fred?"

No response. Ginny, her brown eyes huge and sad and wet and somehow brokenly beautiful, moves out of the way slowly, dramatically, so that Angelina sees, in slow motion, a body, a quite still body with bright blue eyes and _two_ ears -

And she knows who it is. She knows who it is.

And her whole heart has been ripped out of her body, splattered on the ground, and struck by a fallen wall, for good measure.

And she thinks that it's all her fault, for if only she'd been there to hold him, to keep him from leaving, if only she would've _anchored_ him -

Maybe this wouldn't have happened; maybe her annihilated heart might not be going out his broken, kneeling, twin brother right at this very moment.

-:-

They're just another couple that's been destroyed. Angelina doesn't get too worked up over it.

No. She's much too strong for that.

She moves on, marries George, and sometimes she can just convince herself that this is the life she's dreamed of, with Molly and Arthur as parents-in-law, and red all over and laughter spinning like the world on its axis.

Then George will laugh and she'll hear a twinkle, not a chime, and she is jolted back to Earth by that abnormally large freckle on his left cheek, that Fred never had.

-:-

They're not joined in the afterlife. She married his brother.

It's not right, since she knows that George will want a romantic reunion for them when he dies, and since by some miracle she got into Heaven, she's not going to get kicked out by one look in those bright blue eyes.

She loves George. She does. But it's not the same - it's not the same sort of euphoria, the same sort of exhilaration, the same thrilling feeling as what she feels for Fred.

But George is his _brother_.

So, she settles for yearning and yearning for him and wanting him and pretending George is Fred (though it's harder to do now, with _his_ eyes right there, contradicting her purposely false thoughts).

And she thinks that it's a lost cause, because he doesn't _need_ an anchor anymore.

He's already up and gone, as he always almost-was, and it makes her cry because at least when he was dead and she was alive she didn't want him _this_ much.

-:-

The ashes on her feet weigh her down sometimes when she walks.

-:-

**Happy May 2nd, everyone! Please review - this is as suckish as I predicted, so now I need to know what I can do to make it less awful. =)**

**colorful swirls**


End file.
